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DhritarAshtra was physically blind and implicitly supported wrongdoing of his son Duryodhana. GAndhAri blindfolded her eyes to follow the distress of her husband & never objected Duryodhana.

Both of these are found in scriptures. I also scarcely remember similar dialog from BRC Mahabharata, where Bhishma/Vidura tells to/for DhritarAshtra not to extend blindness in emotional matters too.

Like how there is a folklore of "women can't keep secrets" - is associated with Yudhishtira's curse. Is the term "blind support" also associated with Mahabharata as a folklore or in reality?

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  • Are you asking whether the English phrase "blind support" originates from the Mahabharata? I think the answer is probably no - I find the phrase attested as early as 1802, when Europeans had almost no knowledge of the Mahabharata. So it did not go directly from Hindu scripture to English, and as far as I know the phrase "blind support" does not have a direct antecedent in any of the predecessor languages to English, e.g. Latin. So it's unlikely that there's a link.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 3:03
  • In any case, I think you'd be better off changing your question to "Does the Mahabharata ever link Dhritarashtra's blindness to his behavior?" or something along those lines. As it stands now, your question is arguably off-topic.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 3:08
  • @Keshav, not the literal phrase "blind support", but the term. It can be roughly translated in local language to "andha samarthan". Of course iltge Qn is not related to English words but the meaning of it which later be translated to English. Regarding changing of Qn, it will largely change its meaning. IMO, it could be similar folklore like Yudhishtira. Hence good to go. Let it be with community for a day for them to review.
    – iammilind
    Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 3:10
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    A term is nothing but a word or phrase. Like I said, the English phrase "blind support" is almost certainly not related to the Mahabharata. Now is "andha samarthan" a common phrase in Hindi? (I ask because I don't speak Hindi.) If it is, then the logical step would be to investigate how old this Hindi phrase is, i.e. to see if it's a newer phrase translated from the English phrase "blind support" or if it's a translation of a Sanskrit phrase. And if it's the latter, whether that Sanskrit phrase relates to the Mahabharata. But again, it's unclear whether any of this is on-topic for our site.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 3:36
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    Now if you're interested in whether the idea of using blindness as a metaphor for unquestioning support originates in the Mahabharata, then as I said you'd be better off asking something like "Does the Mahabharata use Dhritarashtra's blindness as a metaphor?" But if you're just looking for the origin of a specific term, this may be the wrong place to ask that.
    – Keshav Srinivasan ♦
    Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 3:40

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